Awakening
by FlowerOwl
Summary: Ever since they were kids, Zelda would always be the one to wake him up when he slept in. This time, however, it was up to Link to wake her up.


Link did not like his new room at the Academy. The building was too large and full of unknown corners, with too much empty space and hallways that stretched on for far too long, the sounds that would creep into his room even when he closed the door and crawled onto his bed, curling up under the blanket in an attempt to block it out would still be too loud for him to go to sleep, and even if that had not been the case, Link suspected he would still not be able to relax in a building that was separated from the rest of the island. But mostly, he felt lonely.

So after the headmaster had shown him to his room for the first time, leaving him with a pitying look in his eyes as he told him to get some sleep before his first day of class, Link had stood there for a moment, left with no idea of what to do.

In the end, the softness of the bed that had been pushed into the corner of the room and the burning feeling in his eyes—he was tired, not crying, the tears that had left a dark stain on his tunic as he kept pulling the sleeve down to cover his hand to wipe them away had nothing to do with it—won, and he slowly crossed the room, almost unsure of whether he was really allowed to be there. Of course, the headmaster had assured him that they were all happy to see that he had survived the accident and that he was more than welcome at the Academy. The comforting words had ended when Link had pushed his way through the crowd, running away from the graveyard. Gaepora had kept his distance since then, though his worried glances had not ended, especially not when Link had shut the door the moment he had said goodnight, not bothering to repeat it.

It was strange that he did not seem to understand what had just happened. How could it possibly be a good night now, let alone a good day?

He fell asleep on the floor. The bed had been too soft, felt too much like he was falling through the air.

The sound of someone knocking on the door was what woke him up in the morning, and although Link did not feel any better, not even waiting a day, the person outside did not seem to care about that, continuing to rap at the door. Though the sound was not loud per se, the repetition was almost enough to make him bury himself under his blanket again.

But he didn't do that. It would have been rude and Link being rude was not what his parents would have wanted.

So, although he would have preferred to ignore the sound, Link forced himself to get up and open the door, shooting the person outside a questioning look.

The girl had seemingly not expected that. Looking down like she had just then spotted something extremely interesting on her shoes, she seemed determined to do anything other than tell him what had brought her there, twisting a strand of her hair around her finger as she shifted slightly from side to side.

Zelda, Link's brain supplied him with, recognising the blue dress and blonde hair of the girl who had kept on sending him quick glances throughout the entirety of the funeral. Although he had not seen her after the headmaster had accompanied him to the Academy, Link was fairly certain he had heard Gaepora mention something about her being his daughter.

Well, not even the fact that she might be the daughter of the headmaster would be enough to make him be the one to break the silence between them, Link decided as he crossed his arms and sent her an expectant glare, silently daring her to confirm his suspicions about why she had bothered to visit him. Just a single sentence, something about how she was sorry for his loss, would be enough for him to known that she was there because her father had asked her to make sure Link was okay.

It took a while, but finally, it did get through to her that he would not ask her why she had decided to go and wake him up.

"I just wanted to tell you that the first class of the day starts at eight," she said, still keeping her eyes fixed on the floor, "you might not want to miss it."

What did she know about what he wanted? What he wanted, he could not get, and the fact that he was still there, at the Academy, was only a reminder of that.

But before Link got the chance to send her a stiff nod and close the door again, Zelda looked back up at him.

"You might not like it," she added, and somehow, as Zelda spoke, the hesitant look on her face transformed into a mischievous smile, "but I am not about to let you be late for your very first lesson, sleepyhead."

The nickname was left hanging in the air between them as she turned around and ran away from him. Even as she disappeared around the corner, Link was still standing exactly where she had left him, the muscles around his mouth contracting and extending in a way they had not done for the last couple of days, forming the smallest smile.

It got easier. Not necessarily perfect, but as the months pass and he slowly began to catch up with his classmates, Link slowly found himself thinking less and less about that night, and when he did, the tears no longer kept him up far past sunset. Already a week into his new life, he had moved from the floor and up onto the bed. He would still wake up after a nightmare from time to time, the feeling of falling through the air still present in his limbs as he sat up, clutching the blanket as he looked down at the solid floor beneath him, but it was not enough to keep him from being able to fall sleep anymore.

However, as Zelda would be the first to attest, that did not mean that the task of waking him up in the morning became any easier.

"Link, do you think there will ever be a time where you will not need me to come and make sure you get up in time," she teased him, her laugh reflected in her eyes when he pretended to think about it.

"No, you are so good at it; I don't want to take that joy away from you."

She pretended to shove him off the bed, but he pushed his hand into the blankets and leant backwards, effectively stopping her attempts.

It barely took her a second to figure out what he was doing. "You're cheating!" she whined before pushing again, this time trying to use her own momentum, and Link had to give it to her that even when he leant as far back as he dared to, he still had to use all of his strength to focus on not letting her win.

But, trying his best to hide just how difficult she is making it for him, Link raised an eyebrow along with his voice, making it a poor imitation of hers. "Oh, really?"

"Yes, really! And since I am younger than you, so you should try to think of me as well!"

Somehow, Zelda managed to utter the words it like it was years and not just a couple of months that had separated them and gotten them placed in different year groups, and Link could not help but laugh. He must have let go of the blanket as well, because suddenly, he is on the floor, Zelda sliding down from the bed moments later to join him.

"Link, there is something I have to ask you about." and just like that, her voice was no longer cheerful. The change was abrupt enough to make the laugh die in his throat as he looked over at her.

Zelda was pulling at the hem of her dress, picking at a few loose threads the way she so often did when there was something she did not want to say. But even though her hands moved so quickly they almost seemed to blur as she worked her way along the hem, she still continued. "I heard from—well, actually it doesn't really matter exactly who was the one to tell me, but I heard that you often scream in your sleep." She finally met his gaze, eyes darting back and forth as she no doubt searched for a reaction. Link tried his best not to think of anything, especially not how he would have to stand under the Statue of the Goddess to meet his Loftwing which would then support him when he would take to the sky. The feeling of Zelda reaching out to squeeze his hand, the gesture tiny and unsure, made it a bit easier to forget about the skies outside. "You know you can talk to me about anything, right?"

"Of course," he nodded, but, looking back at the moment later, he knew that he had not fully realised it until she had asked. Glancing back towards the blankets that were too soft, Link could feel how the words poured from his mouth as he told her about nightmares of falling through the air while he heard his Loftwing cry as it tried to reach him in time.

And for some reason, Zelda sat still, and, rather than try to assure him that it was fine and that it was just an accident, their Loftwings would have been able to catch them had it not been for the placement of the faulty bridge that was too close to the islands, she bowed her head.

When Link found a new and heavier blanket placed on his bedside table that evening, he already knew what name he would find on the note that had been fastened to the fabric with a clothes-peg before he had even touched the paper.

The smile Zelda sent him when she shook him awake the next morning let him know that it had worked more than the lack of nightmares had.

Zelda held onto his hand as Link slowly leant over the edge of the roof, trying to decide how far he would fall before making contact with the ground. It looked like it was only a few metres, not enough for him to injure himself as long as he knew what he was doing, but it did not keep his heart from trying to jump out of his chest as he went over the plan again.

"Are you sure you know what you're doing?" Zelda asked, her voice shaking as she walked up to stand next to him. The wind threw her hair into her face as she turned to look at him.

"No," Link admitted, "but I have to try."

"Why?"

And that was the big question Link had not even found the answer to himself. Why did he do feel like he had to do it?

In the end, he settled for the easiest explanation. "Because if I don't, I will risk embarrassing myself once I meet my Loftwing."

Simple, he could not risk letting the enormous bird lift him from the ground only for him to cry and panic as the island disappeared from underneath him. However, even that did not seem to be enough for Zelda, who mirrored his pose, leaning out over the edge of the roof, barely keeping enough distance between herself and the ledge to ensure that she would not risk getting pushed off the relative safety by a gust of wind.

"It just seems like a bad idea."

"I know." he said, backing away from the edge again, and tried to prepare himself for the jump, trying to calm his frantic heart. "That is why I will have to ask you to push me."

"What!" Zelda's shocked tone let him know exactly what she thought of his idea, but she still moved to stand closer to him. "Link, that is such a bad idea, you have no way of knowing what will happen, you don't even have a Loftwing yet, you—"

He interrupted her. "No, it's going to be fine. It might hurt a little, but I will only fall down a couple of metres—"

"But still, you have to consider—"

"Zelda," she must have noted the slight desperation that had made its way into his voice when the turned towards her, "I will have to do this sooner or later. And if I have to, I'd rather do it sooner."

"Yes, but." Zelda began, and then she went silent, her objections dying on her lips. "Okay then, if you want me to, I can push you of the roof. Just don't blame me once you get hurt, because I can tell you right now that this is not going to end well."

Link nodded. "I know."

They moved around, Link stepping up onto the raised end of the roof while Zelda jumped back onto the roof to stand behind him. Even though he could not see her face, Link could easily imagine how she looked at him right now, worried and slightly surprised by the sheer stupidity of what he was about to do. If Link had to be honest with himself, he was a little bit surprised as well. Jumping from the roof and onto the ground beneath was absolutely not one of his better ideas, but it still felt right as he climbed up onto the ledge, struggling for a moment to regains his balance as the wind crashed into him, pulling at his clothes. For a short, horrifying moment, Link was sure he would fall right then and there, but then he finally managed to somehow lean back and stay upright.

"Are you okay?" Zelda called from behind him as she reached out to grab a fistful of fabric from the back of his tunic in an attempt to help him.

Link waved his hand at her. He could not afford to have to convince her again, so he did his best to sound confident as he answered. "Yes, I just wasn't prepared for that."

"And you are sure you still want to do this?"

No, Link thought, but he still pushed the fear away and tried not to imagine what it would look like when the ground would fly up to greet him. Making sure he was loud enough to be heard over the whistle of the wind, he answered Zelda's question. "Yes, I am sure."

"Do you want me to count before I push you?"

"No," he decided, "just do it."

There was grass on the ground, covering the dirt with a blanket of green. Right then, Link could not remember if he had overheard Pipit tell one of his classmates that it was more pleasant to crash into an island covered in grass or if he had actually said that it hurt more than the alternative. Not that it mattered that much; no matter how hard Link tried to convince himself that what he was about to do was not incredibly dumb and that the grass would cushion his fall, it did not change the fact that Skyloft looked like it was made of solid rock as he stood there, waiting for Zelda to push him.

It was a bad idea, Link realised. No matter what, there was nothing that could stop him from falling to the ground.

But just as he was about to turn around and tell Zelda that she had been right and that he had changed his mind, someone pressed their hands against his shoulders and stepped forward. The amount of force Zelda seemed to have put into the movement took him by surprise, and Link barely had time to do more then let out a tiny shriek before he was flying through the air, arms and legs swinging around him as he fought to stop his fall.

And then the panic receded.

A strange sensation of it all being inevitable filled him, warm feathers closing around him as someone screamed his name and a sudden coldness pierced his stomach, and the next second, Link was falling through the air, the island coming closer and closer until it was all he could see.

When he woke up again, it was to the sound of Zelda trying to explain to her father just why they had decided to jump from the roof.

Finally noticing that he was awake when Link tried to cough discreetly, Zelda hurried over, dragging a chair with her to sit down next to him and pull him in for a hug. Although he had not noticed anything upon waking up, Link knew that he had been injured, and as she pulled him into an embrace so tight it felt like it would have been able to crush his bones, pain shot up through his ribs. Although Link tried to stay still, he must have made some sort of sound to indicate that it hurt, for she quickly let go of him.

Of course, the silence in the room did not last for very long, and though his head still hurt like he had just spent the last several hours walking directly into doorframes, Gaepora still joined them to demand an explanation.

"Uh," Link said, his brain still halfway asleep as he struggled to come up with a convincing lie, "I was just—"

"I had told him about Mia," Zelda cut in, sending her father a brilliant smile as she took Link's hand, squeezing it in a silent gesture for him not to say anything that would reveal their lie, "and we thought that we could perhaps figure out where she had gone. So I suggested that she might have gone up to sleep on the roof, and then we must not have been careful enough when we went to look for her, because I slipped while trying to climb up to her. Link tried to catch me, but he lost his balance and feel to the ground instead."

Sometimes, Link had to admit, Zelda could be scarily quick to make up a story to cover for both of them.

Gaepora shot both of them a long look, and Link did his best to look honest and like he had absolutely suddenly overcome his fear of heights to help Zelda.

After what felt like an eternity, Gaepora nodded slowly. "I see. Please make sure to be a bit more careful the next time," he said, and Link had to fight the urge to let out a relieved sigh when he bought the lie, "I don't want to see any of you get injured."

"Of course," Zelda said, answering for both of them.

Later, once Gaepora had left them with one last reminder that they had to be more aware of the wind, Zelda turned towards Link, and from the wide smile she sent him, Link would not have though that she had just lied to her father.

"So," she prompted him, "did it help? Do you feel any better about heights now?"

He had almost already said no, thinking that hitting the ground had hurt even more than he had expected it to do, only to find that it was not the truth. Even though his head and ribcage ached and he would not be able to participate in his classes for a week, Link could now see that, even if he had fallen, he had survived the meeting with the ground.

"Yes," he said, trying to keep his head still, "I think I do."

A voice called his name, telling him that he would need the same kind of courage soon, and although it spoke with Zelda's voice, Link looked her only to find that she had not moved her lips at all, and was still beaming at him.

As it turned out, there had been no need for Link to worry about the dangers of soaring through the skies with his Loftwing.

The bird, covered in brilliantly red feathers, had landed before him, lowering its great head to let him stroke its beak. Instinctually knowing what to do, Link had climbed onto its back, and, together, they had taken off, the ground disappearing beneath him in a matter of seconds as the bird pushed them away from the stones that covered the area in front of the statue.

It felt familiar as Link moved to the side, the Loftwing following along so quickly it was as if it read his thoughts rather responded to the directions. The layer of feathers was softer than anything Link had ever seen before, and yet, he was certain that the majestic bird would not let him fall.

But as one fear disappeared, another appeared, almost like it existed solely to take its place. The name of the new worry? Groose.

Link could tell that things had changed the moment he stepped back onto the island, Zelda sending a harsh glare in the direction of the Loftwing before she went to congratulate him, pulling him away from the bird, but it still took him a couple of days before he realised that Groose's anger towards him was the result of more than just jealousy over the fact that Link had finally met his Loftwing.

However, Zelda did not stop being his friend just because Groose had begun picking on him, reminding Link as well as the people who happened to be near that Link did not belong at the academy. In fact, as Groose dedicated more of his time to shove Link aside when they passed each other in the hallway or spill ink over his essays, Zelda's voice got louder and harsher when she would step in between until it became a common occurrence for Link to see her stand in between him and Groose while yelling at his classmate.

"You don't have to do that," Link said later when they had gone back to Zelda's room, sitting on the floor as they helped each other with their homework, "I can take care of it myself, you know."

She was silent for a moment, looking down at him with a look in her eyes that was not far from pity, though it was not quite there either, before answering. "And? He still picks on you, and that has to stop—even if you are absolutely certain you can handle it yourself."

He didn't have any arguments ready for that, and to tell the truth, the thought that he would not have to figure out what to do about the issue did begin to feel nice as the shadows gradually grew longer before disappearing completely as the sun sunk behind the horizon.

They must have fallen asleep about halfway through the essay, for Link woke up to Zelda shaking his shoulders, barely getting a chance to get a word out before she pointed towards his face and began giggling.

When he later went to the bathroom, hoping to catch a glimpse of what she had seen in the water, it turned out that the ink had left a mirrored copy of the first couple of lines of his homework written on his cheek.

The embers from the fire flew through the air before landing on the patch of dirt around the logs where they had tried their best to remove any flammable material. Although they were both aware of the fact that their sorry excuse for a fire would only be enough to scare the smaller and more cowardly Keese away, Link still rested his head on Zelda's shoulder as she moved closer to him, the wing of Zelda's Loftwing providing them with a bit of warmth and shelter from the wind. It helped a bit, even if Link was barely able to feel his fingers anymore, but he was still aware that it would not be enough. At least it meant they would not have to worry about the risk of a Keese attacking them if the flames died; the cold air would be sure to do just that long before any of the flying creatures would get a chance to find them.

Zelda moved next to him, her teeth chattering. "How long do you think we have to wait for someone to figure out where we are?" she asked, not taking her eyes off the flames in front of them as she spoke.

Link knew that he was probably meant to tell her a lie, something about how he was sure that someone would soon figure out that the two of them were missing and that, after that, it would be a question of minutes before the knights would be able to locate them. But that was the thing. He was supposed to do that, but when it came to Zelda, Link knew that, no matter how convincing his lie would be, it would still not be enough.

So, choosing to be honest, he quickly reached out to snatch a stick from the fire and began poking at the logs, doing his best to angle his body to protect it from the wind around them. "I don't know. But I doubt they will realise we are gone before nightfall, and at that point, they will have no choice but to wait for it to get light again before they can go looking for us."

"You don't think they will equip them with helmets?"

"No, I don't think they will do that."

They sat in silence as the flames crackled in front of them, casting shadows up onto their faces. Though in Zelda's case, Link could not get a look at her face, not without moving at least, as her hair had fallen in front of her face, creating a curtain between them that hid her eyes.

Finally, she reached up to brush her hair back behind her ears. "Well, in that case, we should probably try to sleep and hope that they will be here in the morning, shouldn't we?" she looked over at him, and Link was shocked to see that, despite the way her lips were curled into a smile, her eyes were shiny as she did her best not to cry.

She was scared. For most of his life, Link had never once seen Zelda admit or show any signs that something scared her, and now that he did, he was left with no idea of what to do.

Perhaps it was the easiest thing to do, and Link knew he should have been able to do more, but he could not imagine what he could tell her to make the situation better—even if he attempted to lie to her, it would not change the fact that they were stuck on one of the smaller islands surrounding Skyloft with nothing but a small fire to both keep the monsters and the cold at bay—so instead, he put his arm around her shoulder, hoping to stop her shivering.

"Next month," he said, "once I win the Wing Ceremony and get to go flying at night as well, I will go and see where you are at the end of each day to make sure that you aren't stuck on some tiny island in the Sky."

That earned him a short chuckle. "You are stuck out here with me as well, sleepyhead. Just because those Sky Tails attacked me first doesn't mean that you aren't also trapped here." she reached up to ruffle his hair, pausing for a moment before withdrawing her hand. "But thank you."

The wind was howling around them when Link looked at her. "Zelda?"

"Hmm?"

"Can you tell me about the costume you are making to play the part of the goddess?"

"It is supposed to be a surprise, you should not even know that I am working on it!" punching his shoulder, but without much force in the punch, Zelda sat up a bit straighter as she continued. "Bus as long as you don't tell anyone that I told you, I don't see why not."

He sat still, keeping his eyes fixed on her as she explained to him exactly what the process of creating her costume had entailed.

In the end, they did survive the night, and Link woke up to find that he had curled up around the remains of the fire, Zelda already sitting up next to him, shaking him awake. Seeing that he had opened his eyes, she pointed towards something in the sky, but Link still had to blink a couple of times before he realised that the tiny dots in the distance were the knights of Skyloft who had finally found them.

In the days leading up to the Wing Ceremony, the voices Link would sometimes hear when he soared through the air on his Loftwing or dived into the skies, trusting his bird to know how far it could allow him to go, reappeared. Or maybe reappeared was the wrong word to describe it, Link thought as he went to bed that evening, doing his best to stay calm and not think about what might be waiting for him. After all, it was not that the voices had not been there during those past years, but there was no questioning the fact that they had gotten louder, a monotonous whisper having joined the choir that sounded so much like Zelda did when she would step in between him and Groose.

Maybe it was the thoughts about the voices that led to the nightmare. Link couldn't tell. All he knew was that he saw some kind of beast rise from the ground to be met with a purple light shining down from above as the whisper repeated the only thing she seemed to be able to tell him, repeating over and over that it was time for him to awake.

However, as determined as the voice was to make sure he would wake up, it was not the entity behind the voice that ended up sticking its head in through his window before chattering loudly and spitting a letter onto his face after the sound had caused him to roll out of his bed, hitting the floor with a thud. No, all of that was due to how stubborn Zelda's Loftwing could be.

Rubbing the back of his head in an attempt to soothe the pain, Link opened the letter and began to read, grinning slightly when Zelda correctly predicted that her letter would probably be the thing to wake him up.

Maybe she knew him a little too well and was a little too aware of just how difficult it could sometimes be to make sure he got up in time, but as Link pulled the belt around his waist before leaving his room, he could not imagine what his life would have been like if he she had not been stubborn enough to befriend him all those years ago.

After Zelda fell to the Surface, Link all but stopped sleeping, barely lying down for enough time to keep the world from spinning around him and to make sure his senses would stay sharp. He knew he should do better, a minor mistake caused by his tired brain would not only affect himself anymore, but even the knowledge of that was not enough to keep him from spending most of his time upright, moving through the foreign areas of the Surface.

How could he do anything but continue onwards without stopping for even a moment, when Zelda's screams and the sight of her falling towards the abyss that would always turn into a mouth, long, jagged teeth sprouting from the corners, was the only thing he could see when he attempted to close his eyes? Sometimes the scenes in his nightmare would morph into the memory of his own parents, and the horror that must have filled them as the pillars that had been intended to support the bridge gave away, but even then, it was always Zelda Link would see when he turned around, hands outstretched in a desperate attempt to pull her back to safety.

Link tried his best, he really did, but every time he allowed himself more than a short nap, it always ended with him waking up, hands clammy with sweat and already reaching for his sword, throat sore after screaming and fighting his way out of yet another nightmare, and with the sound of her name still ringing through the air, thrown from tree to tree, through the warm, volcanic air filled with ash, echoing over the golden sand of the desert.

And even then, it did nothing to ground him. The world still felt unreal, like he is watching someone else lift and swing the sword towards his foes, someone who stood in front of Ghirahim, a calm expression painted onto their face as Ghirahim's blade hit the door that kept both of them from Zelda over and over again, sparks flying from where the metal connected with the barrier. Zelda, who was gone, or at least just barely out of his reach no matter how much force Link poured into his attack as he challenged Ghirahim.

It was not enough. Zelda had been in the temple when he arrived and had been hidden behind the door when he met Ghirahim, but somewhere between that point and the moment he waded into the cold water of Skyview Spring, barely noting the way it seeped the fabric of his trousers and filled the insides of his boots, she had disappeared again, leaving him behind.

So he stopped trying. To tell, the truth, Link was almost afraid that, once he would fall sleep, he would not be able to wake up again.

Zelda just barely slipped away from him for the second—third, he had already lost her the moment she had fallen from her Loftwing, still reaching for him as he dived after her only to be thrown back by the tornado—time at the Lanayru Mining Facility, passing through the Gate of Time in the nick of time before Ghirahim would have caught up with her.

Perhaps it was because she saw the pain in his eyes, the way his hand shook as he turned his back towards Zelda, the very reason he had made his way out there, to keep Ghirahim at bay and give them enough time to escape, but, for once, Impa had not reminded him that he had been too late. There was no need for her to do so either; all Link could think about as Impa made sure to close the doorway for good behind herself and Zelda and Ghirahim left him with a promise of revenge should their paths ever cross again was how if he had only been quicker, a little bit smarter so he would not have been delayed by the puzzles, been braver and not gone back to Skyloft for the potion because, even after everything he had put himself through, Link did still fear death, he might have managed to find her in time.

Even though Impa left him with instructions to go see the old woman in the temple at the Sealed Grounds, Link still let the Bird Statue send him back to the skies. That night, he picked the lock on the door and fell asleep on the floor of Zelda's room, curled up so he could once again fit on the carpet and protect himself from the cold, head resting on one of the pillows that lay scattered there after Zelda had not returned to put them away.

Zelda wasn't there and would never be, not be until he completed his quest, but, as the sun crept over the horizon, light coming in through the window, Link still heard her voice. It was surely nothing more than a figment of his imagination, aided by the wind sweeping over the building, but he knew he had heard her again, playing the same melody she had once dedicated to the goddess while standing on top of her statue.

She went to sleep, and, for the first time since Link could remember, it was his turn to wake her up in the morning.

He already knew what had happened long before Fi appeared to inform him of the results of her analyses.

Jumping off the platform and down to the entrance to the courtyard that was now connected to the door that led into the Sealed Temple, Link barely hit the ground before he began sprinting, ignoring the way his lungs burned in his chest, begging him for a break after the trials that had awaited him in the Sky Keep, as he pushed himself to move faster. He could not get to the doors soon enough.

The blinding light that poured into the main room of the temple through the doors that still separated him from Zelda—only surpassed in brightness by the smile Groose sent him as they passed each other—made him able to move faster, and he burst into the room the moment the doors opened in front of him to find that the amber colour of the crystal had changed, slowly turning more and more yellow as Zelda herself emitted a light so intense Link could not look directly at her.

Link heard the cracks spread and dared to glance back at her, the short glimpse telling him that the surface of Zelda's crystal prison had turned into a fine map of lines and light, barely held together by the vines that had taken over the room during all of those years she had spent trapped in her magical slumber.

And then it burst into a million pieces, the shards hitting the floor beneath her.

His heart might as well have stopped beating when Zelda emerged from the light, looking up at him as she stepped forward; unsteady on her feet in a way Link had never seen her be before. Her head tilted backwards and Link barely had time to run over to catch her, doing his best to calm his heart and stay steady to support her, wrapping his arm around her waist and placing his hand on her back as he lowered both of them to the ground.

She opened her eyes for the second time, looking up at him. Her eyes sparkled, but Link knew that the tears that were rolling down both of their cheeks had nothing to do with sadness.

"Good morning… Link…" Zelda mumbled, her voice hoarse, as she too leant into the hug, their foreheads connecting.

Trying to tell himself that this was it, he would not lose her again, Link did his best to ignore the feeling in the pit of his stomach telling him that he had forgotten something to instead tighten the embrace. "I promised you I would come to wake you up." he said before ruffling her hair. "sleepyhead."

And for a moment, all was perfect and they sat there on the ground until Zelda moved to get up.

Both Groose and the old woman smiled at them when they excited the room with the remnants of the crystal still left on the floor, standing so close to each other that turning towards Zelda to reach for her hand was barely even something Link thought about.

At least, he didn't think about it until a flash and loud explosion knocked him to the ground, his sword clattering as it hit the ground beside him. The ringing in his ears had yet to subside when Link forced himself to open his eyes and saw how Zelda was lying on the ground, only a few metres away from him. She was still within his reach, though Ghirahim stepping out of the shadows, lifting Zelda up and escaping through the Gate of Time put an end to that in a matter of seconds.

Rationally, Link knew that the fight that followed was gruelling, but even as he slipped on the water, falling backwards, and barely had time to deflect a blow from Demise's sword, the tip of it still drawing a deep, red stripe along his right upper arm, he still pushed through, thinking about how Zelda had gone limp in the air as Demise slowly devoured her soul. Link losing to the demon was simply not an option, so he barely even considered the possibility as he twirled through the air, the sword feeling like a natural extension of himself as he leapt up into the air, putting his full weight behind the sword as he finished the duel.

Demise cursed them. Link could feel in his soul that it had not been an empty threat, something inside him really had shifted, binding the three of them together for the rest of eternity, and when the soul of his enemy was sealed inside the sword, part of Link hurt like he had been split into a thousand fragments as well.

But mostly, he felt the pull coming from the Sealed Temple, and so, Link followed it, letting it lead him back into his own world.

He found both Groose and Zelda sitting in the exact same spot as when he had left them, Zelda seemingly still trapped in her unconscious state. For a second that lasted for so much longer than just that, Link felt how his blood turned into ice in his veins as he considered the thought that maybe, despite everything they had been through together, he had ended up failing her.

Groose must have guessed is thoughts, for he was quick to gesture for Link to come closer. "She is still alive, just sleeping. Look." whispering, like the two of them speaking to each other could possibly wake her up, Groose nodded towards Zelda's face, and now that the panic was slowly beginning to lessen, Link could see how her eyes moved behind the lids, almost like she was fighting her way out of the grip of a nightmare.

Although they were at the Surface where the wind was nowhere as harsh as it was in the Sky, seeing her that way and with him unable to do much else than wait and hope for the best could have fooled him into thinking that an icy wind was blowing towards him, reaching his very core.

"What should I—"

Zelda moved, winching as she pulled her arms closer around herself, and all logical thoughts about how he should probably go and find Impa went silent as Link reacted, instinctively knowing what to do as he pulled her into an embrace.

"Please, Zelda, wake up. I— I can't do this without you." maybe he cried, Link could not be sure. At that point, nothing mattered except for when—when not if—Zelda would wake up.

They sat there, the world disappearing around them, all sounds fading away until the only thing Link could hear was how Zelda's heartbeat was growing stronger, the sound no longer so quiet he could barely hear it over the chirping of the birds in the trees above them. And although Zelda stayed still, Link had to believe that it would be fine in the end. There was simply no other way; he had to believe that Demise would have wished for him to be able to know if anything had happened to Zelda.

She finally opened her eyes, looking directly up at him as a smile spread across her face and she raised her head from the ground, and suddenly, she had pulled him in for a kiss, and nothing mattered except for the fact that, despite everything that had happened, they had made it.

"Link," Zelda eyes sparkled with joy as she took the hand he had held out towards her and let him help her stand up again, "thank you. For everything."

The world could have ended around them and it would still have done nothing to lessen the joy that bloomed in his chest. They might have a curse that would most likely come back to haunt not only them but their descendants as well, but for now, they were both alive and in that moment, that was all he could have asked for.

They were there together, and that would be enough.


End file.
